The Corporate Registers Forum is an association of international corporate registries.
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The membership is open to government agencies and their officials responsible for the administration of body corporate registers (a register of companies for example).
The associations' aim is to provide members with the opportunity to review the latest developments in corporate business registers internationally and exchange experiences and information on the present and future operation of corporate business registration systems. The focus of the initial meetings was in the Asia-Pacific region.
The forum first met in Auckland in 2003 and was hosted by the New Zealand Companies Office. The 2003 meeting was an opportunity for corporate registries from thirteen jurisdictions to meet. The initial name given to this group was the Asia-Pacific Corporate Registries Forum.
Auckland is a city in the North Island of New Zealand. Auckland is the largest urban area in the country, with an urban population of around 1,628,900. It is located in the Auckland Region—the area governed by Auckland Council—which includes outlying rural areas and the islands of the Hauraki Gulf, resulting in a total population of 1,695,900. A diverse and multicultural city, Auckland is home to the largest Polynesian population in the world. The Māori-language name for Auckland is Tāmaki or Tāmaki-makau-rau, meaning "Tāmaki with a hundred lovers", in reference to the desirability of its fertile land at the hub of waterways in all directions.
The New Zealand Companies Office is a government agency that provides business registry services in relation to corporate entities, personal property and capital market securities. It delivers nearly all its services through electronic systems and the internet.
A second meeting was hosted by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and held in Melbourne, Australia in March 2005. The members present at that meeting voted to adopt the name Corporate Registers Forum.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is an independent Australian government body that acts as Australia's corporate regulator. ASIC's role is to enforce and regulate company and financial services laws to protect Australian consumers, investors and creditors. ASIC was established on 1 July 1998 following recommendations from the Wallis Inquiry. ASIC's authority and scope is determined by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act, 2001 (Cth).
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia and Oceania. Its name refers to an urban agglomeration of 9,992.5 km2 (3,858.1 sq mi), comprising a metropolitan area with 31 municipalities, and is also the common name for its city centre. The city occupies much of the coastline of Port Phillip bay and spreads into the hinterlands towards the Dandenong and Macedon ranges, Mornington Peninsula and Yarra Valley. It has a population of approximately 4.9 million, and its inhabitants are referred to as "Melburnians".
A third meeting was hosted by the Hong Kong Companies Registry held in Hong Kong in 2006 and it was agreed that the Corporate Registers Forum would be registered under the Hong Kong Business Ordinance as an unincorporated entity.
Hong Kong, officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China and commonly abbreviated as HK, is a special administrative region on the eastern side of the Pearl River estuary in southern China. With over 7.4 million people of various nationalities in a 1,104-square-kilometre (426 sq mi) territory, Hong Kong is the world's fourth most densely populated region.
An unincorporated entity has not been granted formal corporate status by incorporation. An unincorporated entity will generally be a separate entity for accounting purposes, but may or may not be a separate legal entity. For example, in partnerships in England and Scotland are separate entities for accounting purposes, but while English partnerships are not separate legal entities, in Scotland they are separate legal persons.
The fourth meeting was held in April 2007. This meeting was jointly hosted by the Companies Commission of Malaysia and the Accounting & Corporate Regulatory Authority of Singapore
Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. The federal constitutional monarchy consists of 13 states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two similarly sized regions, Peninsular Malaysia and East Malaysia. Peninsular Malaysia shares a land and maritime border with Thailand in the north and maritime borders with Singapore in the south, Vietnam in the northeast, and Indonesia in the west. East Malaysia shares land and maritime borders with Brunei and Indonesia and a maritime border with the Philippines and Vietnam. Kuala Lumpur is the national capital and largest city while Putrajaya is the seat of federal government. With a population of over 30 million, Malaysia is the world's 44th most populous country. The southernmost point of continental Eurasia, Tanjung Piai, is in Malaysia. In the tropics, Malaysia is one of 17 megadiverse countries, with large numbers of endemic species.
Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island city-state in Southeast Asia. It lies one degree north of the equator, at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, with Indonesia's Riau Islands to the south and Peninsular Malaysia to the north. Singapore's territory consists of one main island along with 62 other islets. Since independence, extensive land reclamation has increased its total size by 23%. The country is known for its transition from a developing to a developed one in a single generation under the leadership of its founder Lee Kuan Yew.
A fifth meeting was held in April 2008 and was hosted by Corporations Canada in Vancouver.
Canada is a country in the northern part of North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering 9.98 million square kilometres, making it the world's second-largest country by total area. Canada's southern border with the United States is the world's longest bi-national land border. Its capital is Ottawa, and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. As a whole, Canada is sparsely populated, the majority of its land area being dominated by forest and tundra. Consequently, its population is highly urbanized, with over 80 percent of its inhabitants concentrated in large and medium-sized cities, many near the southern border. Canada's climate varies widely across its vast area, ranging from arctic weather in the north, to hot summers in the southern regions, with four distinct seasons.
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2016 census recorded 631,486 people in the city, up from 603,502 in 2011. The Greater Vancouver area had a population of 2,463,431 in 2016, making it the third-largest metropolitan area in Canada. Vancouver has the highest population density in Canada with over 5,400 people per square kilometre, which makes it the fifth-most densely populated city with over 250,000 residents in North America behind New York City, Guadalajara, San Francisco, and Mexico City according to the 2011 census. Vancouver is one of the most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities in Canada according to that census; 52% of its residents have a first language other than English. Roughly 30% of the city's inhabitants are of Chinese heritage. Vancouver is classed as a Beta global city.
The sixth meeting was held in 2009 Cape Town, South Africa and was hosted by the Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office of South Africa (CIPRO).
Cape Town is the oldest city in South Africa, colloquially named the Mother City. It is the legislative capital of South Africa and primate city of the Western Cape province. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality.
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by 2,798 kilometres (1,739 mi) of coastline of Southern Africa stretching along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe; and to the east and northeast by Mozambique and Eswatini (Swaziland); and it surrounds the enclaved country of Lesotho. South Africa is the largest country in Southern Africa and the 25th-largest country in the world by land area and, with over 57 million people, is the world's 24th-most populous nation. It is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World or the Eastern Hemisphere. About 80 percent of South Africans are of Sub-Saharan African ancestry, divided among a variety of ethnic groups speaking different African languages, nine of which have official status. The remaining population consists of Africa's largest communities of European (White), Asian (Indian), and multiracial (Coloured) ancestry.
The seventh meeting was held in 2010 in Port Louis, Mauritius and was hosted by the Companies Division of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Empowerment.
The eighth meeting of the CRF was held in Singapore in 2011 and was hosted by the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority of Singapore
The ninth meeting of was held in New Delhi India and was hosted by The 2012 Corporate Registers Forum conference was hosted by the Minister of Corporate Affairs, India.
The 10th anniversary meeting of the Corporate Registers Forum was held in Auckland New Zealand and hosted by the New Zealand Companies Office
The 11th meeting of the CRF was held in Rio de Janeiro Brazil and hosted by Junta Comercial do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (the Rio de Janeiro Trade Board) of Brazil
